EU to hold summit on refugee crisis as Croatia buckles under surge
Emergency meeting called as Croatia struggles to cope with huge influx of asylum seekers
The European Union will hold an emergency summit to try to resolve the escalating refugee crisis as Croatia became the latest country to be overwhelmed by the flood of asylum seekers.
Amid chaotic scenes at its border with Serbia, Croatia said it could not cope with the influx of refugees seeking a new route into the EU after Hungary kept them out by erecting a fence.
The European Union's newest member state said it might try to stop taking in refugees, just as European Council President Donald Tusk summoned EU leaders to an extraordinary summit next Wednesday to discuss the crisis and a proposed scheme to distribute 120,000 asylum seekers across the bloc.
The bloc's interior ministers failed on Monday to agree on a mandatory quota system designed to spread the burden of this year's huge influx of refugees and German Chancellor Dr Angela Merkel, leader of the EU's most powerful member state, hacalled for an emergency summit.
More than 7,300 people entered Croatia from Serbia in the 24 hours after clashes on Wednesday between Hungarian riot police and stone-throwing refugees at its neighbour's frontier.
At the eastern border town of Tovarnik, Croatian riot police struggled to keep crowds of men, women and children back from rail tracks after long queues formed in baking heat for buses bound for reception centres elsewhere in Croatia.